Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, January 24, 2001

2001-01-24 04:00:00 PDT Lima, Peru -- The Ecuadoran government said yesterday that favorable ocean currents have spared the Galapagos Islands, one of the world's most significant and sensitive ecosystems, from an ecological disaster.

Wind and ocean currents have partially dissipated the 160,000-gallon fuel spill from a disabled tanker and pushed it out into the Pacific Ocean, away from the islands that are home to giant tortoises, sea lions, rare birds and hundreds of other protected species, the Ecuadoran president's office said last night.

"According to evaluation by the Galapagos National Park, no critical damage exists because the effects have been dispersed," the government statement said,

citing Diego Bonilla, the park's assistant director. "Any impact on the ecosystem is recoverable in the short, medium and long term."

Nonetheless, government environmental officials have created two rescue centers to tend to affected wildlife, which included 16 sea lions, about 50 pelicans and 20 boobies. Experts from the United States and Canada will aid in the animal recovery effort, and a U.S. Coast Guard strike force is helping in the cleanup.

The Ecuadoran government's response to the accident was slowed by the limited resources of an impoverished nation of 12 million people.

Because the Galapagos have never experienced an incident of this magnitude, the full impact on an ecosystem prized for its centuries-old isolation and purity will be difficult to evaluate, experts said. Even if the damage isn't great, the spill has served as a warning, they said.

"This is the first large oil spill in the islands, and they are not prepared for it," said Ricardo Moreno, executive director of Nature Foundation,

an Ecuadoran environmental defense group that works with the World Wildlife Fund. "The government of Ecuador has to be active and show the world when things like this happen. In this case they have been slow in reacting."

Despite the encouraging news about favorable currents, officials warned that fuel continued to seep from the grounded tanker. "Most of the coast has not been affected, and the current is breaking up the oil spill," said Eliecer Cruz, director of the national park on San Cristobal, the biggest of the islands. "For the moment, only a few animals have been affected. . . . But we cannot calculate the future consequences."

Hundreds of Ecuadoran environmental officials and volunteers were tending to the sea lions and pelicans that have been affected on the islands of Santa Fe and Sea Lion, west of San Cristobal.

An 11-member team of pollution-control specialists dispatched by the U.S. Coast Guard raced to extract the remaining fuel from the tanker.

Although only about 15,000 gallons of fuel remained aboard, the precarious position of the tanker impeded the removal.

The spill, which covers a 120-square-mile area, began last Friday night after the tanker ran aground on rocks as it headed to San Cristobal bearing fuel for a private tour operator.